Trying to get the portfolio dusted off a bit so I finally got around to posting 6 more galleries. Put up two music videos with album art mostly made in CG and a bunch of retouching stuff. Check em out!
Portland music scene overview
Back in June, I played a show that was recorded and posted to youtube. Super fun night and the videographer was just the nicest person. This morning I was curious about if she has done any other videos since and god lord man! Looks like she goes out almost every night and records local music here in Portland. A really interesting look into the scene here and who is doing what. Check out her channel at Blue Heron Video.
EP Artwork. We Are Parasols
Just finished up the artwork for another We Are Parasols EP release and got the permission to post it here. All done in Houdini and Redshift. I am tinkering with the idea to give Karma / Solaris a try and see how those work. Would be nice to stay entirely native to Houdini for the renders. I’ll have to do some testing.
Nvidia Canvas App
Was messing around with the Nvidia Canvas App a bit last night and it’s pretty trippy. It only outputs at 512x512 but the AI does some pretty interesting things. For being the first of this type of stuff, I can’t imagine what it will be able to do in 5-10 years. AI is freaky stuff. What I painted on the left and what the AI made out of it on the right.
Cloth Sim study with Sub-D experiments.
The Chair study from the other day had a cloth sim on camera right that I made in DOPs, which is what made me want to mess a bit more with some cloth sims and this is the result of that study. This time though, I just made it directly in a vellum SOP with some pinned points. It’s a much simpler workflow for sure. Used good old JSplacement for the textures and displacement and subdivided the cloth mesh with a poly reduce to get the “webbing” stuff.
Peter Erskine's 5 Key solo Elements
I stumbled upon Aubrey Drums Lessons the other day and it’s really interesting how he breaks down the phrasing. Gonna be spending some time here checking it all out.
Lighting Studies
Worked up another lighting study today for practice. Quick cloth sim thrown in to keep that stuff fresh in my head as well.
Retouching Before and Afters
Just wanted to post a few random before and afters I pull from the archives before purging the servers for new space. Might be adding some more projects soon if I can find the time. Keep an eye out ;)
International Grey resurfaces
A band I did a recording with back 2010 called, “International Grey” has just re-released a few of the tracks and they hold up surprisingly well. Give them a listen! They merged it with another project Named “Allegra Gellar” for the re-release since it is pretty much the same people besides me.
Houdini Doodles, Glass Floats
On the Oregon coast you can see a bunch of these glass floats at the antique shops and wanted to take a stab at recreating the glass. Fun to light as well.
All COVID, all the time blog....
Good podcast here on the current state of the pandemic. 25% down and some other good news.
“The coronavirus seems to be in retreat in the United States, with instances of hospitalization and death both falling.
Although some states, such as Alaska, Maine and New Hampshire, are still seeing high figures, the number of virus cases across the country is down about 25 percent compared with a couple of weeks ago.
So, what stage are we in with the pandemic? And how will developments such as a new antiviral treatment and the availability of booster shots affect things?”
COVID spread
A interesting video of the timelapse of the COVID outbreak so far.
Mike's Motels 1974
Pretty cool photo set here from Mike Mandel on Motels from the 70’s. Some fun stuff that could be interesting to recreate in CG… maybe…
Mike's Motels 1974
Houdini Doodle
Was tinkering around with the concepts from this Entagma tutorial and came up with this variation on it. Pretty straight ahead, but kinda fun.
Bayocean: The lost resort town that Oregon forgot
As someone who loves the coast and the stories about it, I never heard of Bayocean. A small town that was returned to the sea in Tillamook.
“Back in the early 1920s Sutherland said, he would have been looking at an entire street with homes, paved streets with sidewalks and a pier that extended almost a quarter-mile into the bay.
“Looking across the street to the south would have been the general store, run by Francis and Ida Mitchell,” Sutherland said. “And then across the street was the Bayside Inn.”
Now it's just bushy trees and salal.
Sutherland thinks the whole place is an archeologist's dream.
“A little bit uphill you’d probably find old automobiles parked, rotting away. And some refrigerators, water heaters, whatever was left behind when this became an island."
"Feels Like I've Had Enough" | (Official Audio Visualizer)
Here is a little looping video I did for We Are Parasols that was released today. Did not do the editing though. All done in Houdini and Redshift. Little write up for them on Post Punk as well.
Looks pretty cool as a website header. ;)
Point by Point | Simon Fiedler | Houdini HIVE Utrecht
This is a bit older but the vex code is really quite well done and explained. Gonna tinker a bit with it next time I have some time.
50 Favorite Sci-Fi And Fantasy Books Of The Past Decade
NPR just released a damn good list of books to check out. We listen to a TON of audiobooks here so this list is great. Currently really into Jade City by Fonda Lee.
“These past 10 years have brought seismic change to science fiction and fantasy (sometimes literally, in the case of N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth series), and we wanted to celebrate the world-shaking rush of new voices, new perspectives, new styles and new stories. And though we limited ourselves to 50 books this time around, the result is a list that's truly stellar — as poll judge Tochi Onyebuchi put it, "Alive."
We Asked, You Answered: Your 50 Favorite Sci-Fi And Fantasy Books Of The Past Decade
Michael K. Williams, RIP.
Michael K. Williams passed away this weekend. Such an amazing talent. Here is a link to Marc Maron’s podcast with him from Feb.
HyperGrass!
This asset looks pretty good, adding it to the list of assets / tutorials to try out for sure.
“HyperGrass is a multi-purpose collection of realistic 3D grass assets unlike any other. Create realistic fields of grass with ease and craft the perfect look you need with an unprecedented amount of flexibility, control and creative possibility.
With a unique multi-layer design and endless amounts of variation, HyperGrass will be the only 3D grass library you ever need for adding incredible realism to your artwork.”
